The View From North Mali

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By ANNE JOLIS

When Tuareg nationalists claimed North Mali for their own last spring, they named the town of Gao as the capital of the "nation of Azawad." Local government officials—the mayor, his administrators, the police, customs agents—were the first to flee. Everyone who could leave, left.

The town of about a quarter-million people was left to the rebels and, by mid-summer, to the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (Mujao), the homegrown al-Qaeda affiliates who ousted the nationalists and imposed strict Sharia law.

"We felt abandoned," says Abdoulaziz Touré, a schoolteacher here in Gao. "But everyone was terrified. We understood why they left." We're speaking on the side of Gao's "Place de Sharia"—formerly the "Place de l'Independence," renamed by Mujao over the summer. Two amputees are describing to a broadcast journalist nearby exactly why and how Mujao saw fit to remove their hands: one was accused of stealing a mattress; the other of intent to rob a boutique.

Life "still is not as it should be," utility worker Guindo Boubacar says. The French intervention in January helped restore some semblance of normalcy—dancing, smoking and women's hair are no longer forbidden. Still, no one dares go beyond the city limits. French air strikes have sent jihadists scattering through the North. But they so far have only managed to hold a few key towns. In Gao, there is now a strict 8 p.m. curfew in effect.

Then there are the power problems. Fighting between the secular nationalists and Mujao destroyed much of the city's electrical infrastructure. Meanwhile, the roads leading to Gao—now featuring roadside bombs laid by the Islamist insurgents—are too dangerous for regular deliveries of fuel to power Gao's generators.

"These people, they are armed to the teeth," says Mr. Touré. "You didn't come a moment too soon," he adds, under the impression that your correspondent is French. "I might even say you came a bit late."

I tell him I'm not French, but American. This prompts an awkward silence.

"Well," Mr. Boubacar says finally, "I have to tell you, we weren't even expecting the French to come. We were expecting the Americans. America—you were here, in Mali, training soldiers! You're supposed to be this big powerful friend of Mali—and then you just left. No one here understood that at all."

I recite Washington's reason for ending the training mission in Mali after the coup last March: U.S. law prohibits direct assistance to junta governments. This explanation doesn't impress Gao's locals, who seem more concerned with electricity and security than if or when their country holds an election to satisfy Washington. At any rate, now that the French are here, Mr. Touré says, "We want them to stay, eternally. Never leave. Them, the Mujao, they're capable of coming back any time."

As for the idea that Malian and other African forces will soon be able to hold off the jihadists on their own, Mr. Touré rolls his eyes. "Do you think we can manage this on our own?" He answers his own question: "This is international terror. This is jihad."

From the Wall Street Journal